Government has confirmed that schools will reopen on Tuesday July 28. In May government announced that schools will reopen 29 June but was forced to postpone to allow the relevant authorities “to mobilise resources”! What resources, they did not say. Now we know!
"Though we were saying school heads are ready to work for as long as we receive material support in terms of resources such as masks and sanitisers, currently schools rely on fees and coffers are empty," said one school head told Sunday Mail.
So, over and above their demand for a living wage, the schools are asking government to supply them with sanitisers to disinfect the schools regularly, thermometers to check the temperature of teachers and students and face mask and other PPE.
The schools were closed 30 March at the start of the nationwide lockdown to stop the spread of corona virus on the understanding that school will reopen as soon as it was safe to do so. In May when government’s own covid-19 case reports showed the virus was not spreading as fiercely as feared, as of 26 May 2020 the country had 65 confirmed cases, and so schools were to reopen 29th June. The authorities had a month to mobilize and get ready to reopen schools.
Now it emerges that the one month to mobilise after the May decision was not enough. Government has given itself two months to mobilise but even that is not enough!
It is no secret that Zimbabwe has failed to supply PPE, sanitisers, clean running water and all the other basic requirements to its frontline workers and institutions dealing with suspected and confirmed covid-19 cases 24/7. Yes, teachers, students and schools must be adequately protected from corona virus infection but surely the priority is to supply nurses with PPE before considering the teachers’ needs.
Last week government announce that it will increase the health care workers’ wages by 50% (a very sick joke given inflation is already 800%) and pay US$ 75.00 covid-19 allowance. The rest of the civil servants including teachers were to get a similar wage increase plus allowance. Given the country’s economy has been shrinking, this will only fuel the run-away inflation.
As for the clean running water, sanitisers, PPE, etc. for schools; just forget it!
Since 26th May Zimbabwe’s confirmed official covid-19 cases have shot up from 63 to 486 and, there in doubt, the number will double by the time school reopen on 29 July. The real figure is 50 times! Zimbabwe’s corona virus problem is matching that of SA with 83 890 confirmed cases therefore Zimbabwe, with ¼ the population of SA, with have 21 945 cases not 486!
Still, it makes no sense that Zimbabwe closed school with 10 (official) confirmed covid-19 case and will be reopening school at a time the confirmed cases 1 000 and soaring fast! Worse still the schools will have no resources to maintain the bear minimum hygienic condition to contain corona virus and the country will have no rigorous testing regime to quickly identify corona virus outbreaks.
There is no doubt that schools will be one of the many covid-19 hotspots just as quarantine centres housing returnees have become!
1.6 million or 10% of the population in Zimbabwe, at least, will be infected by the corona virus and hundreds of thousands will die. Officially, the country will have a few thousand conformed cases and a few hundred dead. 1 000 lost lives will be counted as 1 death, if you are lucky!
Black lives matter-not at all, not in Mnangagwa's Zimbabwe.
The video shows one W. Chingwena of Croco Motors telling a parliamentary committee that his company supplied Landcruisers to the Zimbabwean government at about US$110 00 each. But the Reserve Bank and the Ministry of Finance told parliament that the cars were worth US$400 000 each.
ReplyDeleteHow can a nation failing to buy life saving covid-19 test kits @ US$6 be buying luxury vehicles @ US$ 400 000!!
CONFIRMED Covid-19 cases have risen to 489 after four people were tested positive Sunday, Health Ministry said.
ReplyDelete“Three cases tested positive from Covid-19 today (Sunday). These include returnees from South Africa (3) and one local case. The local case is a contact of a known confirmed case.”
“As at 21 June 2020, Zimbabwe had 489 confirmed cases, including 64 recoveries and six deaths,” the ministry said in its daily Covid-19 update.
We once again note with dismay that Zimbabwe is not testing as aggressively as it should. Three days ago the number of cases shot up by 62 and there has been no increase in the number of tests to show the regime is concerned about the cases. 415 tests were carried out bringing to national total to 62 812 as of the 21 June 2020.
What is clear is the regime is determined to have one of the lowest per capita covid-19 cases in the region even when it is clear under-reporting the cases will only help the virus spread far and wide. Zimbabwe will have a lot more people infected by the virus and many of them will die than if the country had been truthful and followed a rigorous test, track and trace policy.
Only Zanu PF stands to benefit from this policy of underreporting covid-19 cases!
A MAJOR health catastrophe is brewing in the country as government struggles to convince striking health workers to return to work.
ReplyDeleteDoctors and nurses downed tools over a week ago over poor wages and shortage of personal protective clothing.
A knee jerk decision by government to pacify them with a US$75 monthly allowance did not help matters as they rejected the offer, describing it as measly.
It has now emerged that since the strike started last week, patients in the country’s major referral hospitals, including those in maternity wards, are not being attended to, heightening the risk of losing more lives.
The corona virus outbreak has occurred at a time when Zimbabwe’s economy had all but collapse and taking down with it the health care services and everything else. For 40 years we have done nothing to address the problem of bad governance which is the root cause of the economic meltdown and political paralysis. The chickens have finally come home to roost in their billions!
The corona virus has spare no one and many nations are set to pay dearly economically and in terms of human suffering and deaths. Countries like Zimbabwe which were the least prepared for the pandemic and with a blunderingly incompetent government during the outbreak and after to boot will pay the king’s ransom price!
@Sender52
ReplyDelete“This is the best time for people in the health profession to go on strike for better conditions of service - sounds cruel but there's no better time not only in Zimbabwe but in all countries around the world.
“Health sectors should get double or triple what governments allocate to defence and ministerial limos in their annual budgets.”
There is no denying the fact that Zimbabwe is a pariah state ruled by corrupt and incompetent vote rigging thugs whose priorities are to feed their insatiable greed for power and wealth. One has to question why the nation has done nothing to end this rotten political system all these last 40 years.
I would like to believe the health care workers are on strike because their pathetic wages are so lower they are truly “incapacitated”! If the monthly wage is not enough to pay for transport to work much less other basic essentials such as food and accommodation it is foolish to expect the worker to continue reporting to work.
Countries like South Korea and New Zealand have managed to contain the corona virus and kept the infection and deaths numbers low. Countries like Zimbabwe have failed to contain the virus and it has spread far and wide and yet they too want to claim the accolades for having low infection and death numbers by falsifying the figures. The penalty of denying the true infection rate is that the nation has a false sense of security which has only helped to accelerate the spread of the virus.
ReplyDeleteZimbabwe will have a hell lot more people infected and killed by covid-19 than it would otherwise if the country had been truthful and addressed the problem head-on. Zanu PF has always been a secretive regime and, no doubt, hundreds of thousands will die of covid-19 but officially the country will have a few hundred deaths and Mnangagwa will boast of the regime’s achievement in containing corona virus.
Of course, it is very frustrating that Zanu PF has not only failed to contain corona virus and the nation should be holding the regime to account. Instead the regime is punishing the people, the victims of its blundering incompetence, by ignoring their suffering and deaths.
Indeed, Mnangagwa and his Zanu PF cronies are ashamed of the millions who will be infected with corona virus and the hundreds of thousands who will die, just as the regime is ashamed of the millions living in abject poverty. The regime holds the corona virus victims solely responsible for their affliction. The regime is refusing to acknowledge the true figure of the victims because these people are an embarrassment and they should have never walked on this earth. They are raining on the regime’s parade!
This is a wake-up call for the people themselves, if they want to save themselves from the certain suffering and death then they must do something about getting a competent government they cares about their suffering and value every one as a human being. All these Zanu PF thugs care about is feeding their insatiable greed for power and wealth, they certainly do not value the ordinary people whose suffering and deaths matter-not at all.
The Zimbabwe Anti-Corruption Commission (ZACC) on Tuesday shut down its head office in Harare after the husband and child of a staff member tested positive for Covid-19, said ZACC spokesperson John Makamure.
ReplyDeleteZimbabwe has recorded 525 confirmed cases, including six deaths and 64 recoveries.
The chances are the husband and child will be included in the official confirmed cases as local infected by returnees if they are included at all. Zimbabwe is being frog marched blindfolded into this corona virus pandemic by deliberately hiding the seriousness of the virus for sole purpose of keeping up appearances of make-believe image of a competent government.
If there is justice in this world then there must be a thorough investigation into why Zimbabwe has not been testing, tracking and tracing as aggressively as the WHO has advised. Why the government has not tested all suspected covid-19 cases in the local community notably in clinics and hospitals?
Zanu PF was responsible for the Gukurahundi massacre the truth, the whole truth and nothing but the truth of which will never the known because many of those responsible to the heinous acts and the witnesses have since died. The same must not be allowed to happen to the corona virus victims, every effort must be made to uncover the whole truth and, if possible, bring those responsible to justice!
Masvingo Provincial Hospital is reportedly no longer admitting or treating any patients after nurses and doctors went on strike late last week citing poor working conditions underlined by poor pay, shortage of medicines and lack of personal protective equipment.
ReplyDeleteThe problem of the economic meltdown, the collapse health care services, etc. are all a culmation of 40 years of gross mismanagement, rampant corruption, vote rigging and murderous misrule by Zanu PF. For 40 years we have watched whilst Zanu PF thugs destroyed the country's economy and ride roughshod over our freedoms and rights. These problem have now come home to roost and the corona virus outbreak has helped bring these problem into sharp focus!
Good governance matters and if we still continue to do nothing to ensure we have a competent and accountable government then we are going to pay dearly for our folly until we do something!
This week, the government revealed that in light of the increase in COVID-19 confirmed cases, it has intensified awareness campaigns in communities on the pandemic as well as reinforcement of WHO guidelines.
ReplyDeleteFurthermore surveillance, management and treatment plans are being fine-tuned paying particular attention to prevalence, areas of high concentration, management of quarantines, treatment, and isolation centres.
This is just nonsense! The number of confirmed covid-19 cases have soared from 63 on 26th May to 530 today 24th June, i.e. 741% in just one month and yet the regime has stubbornly refused to increase the testing, tracking and tracing which the WHO has been calling for all along.
There is no doubt that the unhygienic conditions in our quarantine centres have turned them into covid-19 hotspots. It is shocking that now that hundreds if not thousands (the exact number of covid-19 cases is not known because we have not been test aggressively) of our people have been infected this government is finally moved to make sure there is clean running water at the quarantine centres!
Here we go again, the number of confirmed covid-19 cases has surged up from 63 26th May to 551 today 25th June. The surge should have set alarm bells ringing and the nation should have step up its testing to 1 000 test per day the regime promised in April. Sadly, this has not happened.
ReplyDeleteOn the 26th May the country had done 38 352 test and as on 25th June the total number of test is 65 111 which 26 759 tests in 30 days or 892 tests per day. Given that most of these tests are of the people in quarantine who are tested on arrival, tested again after 8 days and then at the end of their 21 quarantine period (most of the new cases have been returnees) clearly not enough tests are being carried out among the locals, especially all those with covid-19 symptoms.
SA have done a much better job of testing and it has 118 375 confirmed cases and 2 292 deaths if Zimbabwe was as diligent in its testing its figure will probable a ¼ given our population is the same ratio. So, Zimbabwe should have 29 000 cases and 500 deaths.
The lower the covid-19 cases and deaths the more this Zanu PF government will feel it has done an excellent job containing pandemic. But under-reporting the seriousness of the virus by such a wide margin, 551 official vs 29 000 real over 50 times discrepancy! There is no doubt this had a big impact on the number of people who got the virus. It is immoral that anyone should ever be deliberately kept ignorant of such a deadly disease for the so that with the paid responsibility of keeping the public safe can hide the truth for sole purpose of getting a brownie points for something they did not do!
I AM in quarantine and it's a mess." Many Zimbabweans woke up to this distressful text from humanitarian worker Munyaradzi Madziwa who had been quarantined at Mosi Oa Tunya Secondary School in Victoria Falls.
ReplyDeleteNo one should be surprised that quarantine centres are covid-19 hotspots. How the country has opened these quarantine centres without even something as basic as clean running water, beggars belief!
THE Health Service Board (HSB) yesterday said it had submitted the demands of the striking health workers to government and was still awaiting a response.
ReplyDeleteHSB chairman Paulinus Sikosana made the remarks when he appeared before the Parliamentary Portfolio Committee on Health and Child Care led by acting chair Doubt Ndiweni.
Sikosana told the committee that the Zimbabwe Health Apex Council submitted a notice to HSB to withdraw services with immediate effect (June 18, 2020).
Unless government puts an end to the rampant corruption and gross mismanagement and revive the economy, which it has decidedly failed to do, then the health workers will never be paid a living wage because government has no money. So far what government has done is print money to pay wage increases and thus fuelling inflation which in turn has eroded away the buying power of the wages! This is just a rat race with not starting point and end point.